The County Court granted the defendant's application for judgment non obstante veredicto, setting aside a jury verdict finding employer negligence in respect of a manual handling injury. The Court held that the plaintiff failed to adduce any evidence — whether direct, expert, or circumstantial — of a reasonably practicable alternative system of work that the defendant ought to have implemented prior to the injury, or that any such alternative would have avoided or reduced the risk of injury. Post-injury return-to-work modifications and medical recommendations for recovery were held to be incapable of constituting evidence of a prospective counterfactual system of work that a reasonable employer should have adopted before the incident.
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